


Hopeless Romantic

by RubyEliz



Category: Free!
Genre: Day 2 - Relationship / Romance prompt, Established Relationship, Idiots in Love, M/M, Natsuya/Nao briefly mentioned, One Shot, RinHaruWeek2018, Romance, competitive Haru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-13 15:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16895544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyEliz/pseuds/RubyEliz
Summary: Haru and Rin take a relationship quiz and Rin’s big mouth gets him into trouble.





	Hopeless Romantic

**Author's Note:**

> Short and silly one-shot for my first ever go at writing to a prompt :) I’ve never done so before and found it strangely difficult BUT I wanted to challenge myself to contribute something to RinHaru week and here we are. 
> 
> This is for Day 2 relationship/romance prompt and was originally sparked by the idea that it can sometimes be super easy to see Rin as the hopeless romantic one in the pair, but that Haru in his own way is just as much a romantic, if not more. 
> 
> Only a smidge of Natsuya/Nao right at the start, but wanted to tag/flag incase anyone would prefer to avoid <3

Rin pushed his key into the lock and braced himself. Turning the handle he stepped through the door only to be hit by a shower of rose petals. He took in the scene before him and felt his stomach sink.

The small flat he shared with Haru had been decked out in enough candles to constitute a fire risk, there was sweet piano music playing and Haru himself was stood front and centre surrounded by yet more rose petals and dressed in his best suit. 

“Welcome home _lover._ My sun, my moon.”

The words were sweet, but Haru’s tone was flat.

Rin’s face fell. “Haru please! Not this still? How many times do I have to say I’m sorry. It just came out wrong.”  
  
Haru was unmoved.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about _darling boyfriend_. I’m showing you how romantic I can be. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

Rin just groaned and cursed his big mouth.

* * *

All week Rin had been enduring a romance war waged by one Haruka Nanase - only perhaps the most stubborn and competitive person Rin could have had the misfortune to fall in love with.

It was his fault really, he knew it was his fault, though he still thought Natsuya and his dumb-ass relationship quiz should take at least a little of the blame.

They’d only supposed to have been grabbing a quick lunch together between training - Natsuya, Haru and Rin - but then Nao had joined and Natsuya had pulled out some trashy magazine he’d been reading and thought it would be ‘fun’ to see which couple knew the most about each other. Competitive as always, Rin and Haru had determined to beat them…

...That was until they realised they were faced with perhaps the most sickly in sync couple on the planet. Despite generally being as different as night and day, Natsuya and Nao were completely and disgustingly-sweetly aligned in all their answers.

Rin and Haru on the other hand couldn’t seem to get through a single question without some argument or debate preceding their - eventual - agreement. They hadn’t been doing too badly though, that is until Natsuya had announced the final question.

“Who is the most romantic one in your relationship?”

He’d look to Nao, a flicker of uncharacteristic humility on his face. “It’s close but I think I wanna say me babe. What do you think?”

Nao had smiled and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Oh it’s definitely you. I’m not sure I’m recovered from when you turned up outside my halls with a boombox.”

“Hey! I’d just heard _Cut to the feeling_ for the first time and it made me think of you. I wanted you to hear it too.”

“But where did you even find a boombox at 2am?”

Natsuya shrugged like it couldn’t possibly matter.

“What about you two?”

“Easy, obviously thats me.” Rin responded quickly. Too quickly as it turned out. Haru had turned to look at him, nose crinkled in confusion.

“Why obviously?”

“No offense babe, but you kind of suck at that stuff. You bought me goggles for our first anniversary.”

“I… suck. At being romantic?” Haru’s eyes had narrowed dangerously. Rin had known instantly that he was going to be made to eat his words.

“Uh Oh.” Natsuya had stage whispered into Nao’s neck. “Time to evacuate the area.”

-x-

Rin had tried to backpedal of course - tried exhaustively and valiantly - but the damage had been done, and so for the past week Haru had been on a one man mission to smother him with romance.

Sometimes really quite literally.

On Monday Rin had woken up not in the arms of his boyfriend, but half buried under the most ridiculous pile of stuffed animals (including the largest stuffed shark he’d ever seen), each holding a red ‘I love you’ pillow. After digging himself out of the mountain of fluff, he’d found Haru sat calmly at the their kitchen table with a stack of heart shaped pancakes and a single red rose. Rin had laughed it off a little awkwardly as a good prank and his lesson learned

… If only it had been that simple.

On Tuesday things took a slightly stranger turn. The day had passed normally for the most part - training, classes, dryland - and he and Haru had been heading home making small talk on the metro station platform. Then, as the train pulled in, Haru waited until the last second before he pulled Rin’s bag strap from his shoulder, leaving Rin fumbling and distracted as Haru jumped into the packed carriage just before the doors closed. Rin had been torn between being outraged and completely and utterly bemused, watching Haru through the glass as the train pulled away.

The penny only dropped when he arrive at their station on the next train only to find Haru stood waiting for him on the platform with balloons and a cardboard sign with his name and a heart on it.

“Rin! You’re back! Welcome home. I’ve missed you so much!” He’d shouted loudly, and muffled Rin’s swearing in a bone crushing hug.

On Wednesday, Rin finally started to sense a theme. It had started raining in the early afternoon and so Haru had appeared in the middle of one of his lectures to pull him out of class (citing a swimming emergency to Rin’s professor who surprising didn’t question what such a thing could be) only to drag Rin out into the quad so that he could kiss him in the rain. (Ok, so Rin hadn’t exactly _hated_ that one. Even if it had garnered them a few whoops and jeers).

Thursday’s stunt resulted in more than just a few jeers and marked the start to the end of Rin’s tether. At the close of their swim training debrief Haru had stood up in front of the whole team and started reciting a list of 10 reasons he loved Rin. Most of the guys were happy to tolerate it, enjoying watching Rin squirm, but coach had turned a worrying shade of purple and started chasing Haru with a clipboard (it was impressive really how Haru could run and still project his voice at the same time). They were both punished with a 2k time trial for time wasting. Rin had groaned and muttered under his breath about rewarding Haru’s ridiculousness - how their coach had yet to learn that Haru considered extra pool time anything BUT a punishment was beyond him.

They’d fought a little after in the changing room and as far as Rin was concerned that could and should have been the end of it, but sadly it was not to be so.

Rin was still trying to unsuccessfully to repress the coffee shop incident that followed on Friday.

They’d been in the middle of what Rin had thought was a thankfully-normal outing when Haru had - face remaining utterly impassive - stood up and started singing a love song to him in front of all the other bemused customers, voice surprisingly sweet for someone who’s default was monotone.

It would have been up there with one of the most romantic moments in Rin’s life —- were it not for the room full of applauding strangers, or the overly triumphant glint in Haru’s eye as he sat down calmly and pointed at Rin’s muffin, asking “You gonna eat that?”  
  
Rin had shoved the whole thing in his mouth in one go in an attempt to stop himself from screaming.  
  
“Shame.” Haru had remarked lightly. “I thought you might like me to feed it to you. _Romantically._ ”

 

Enduring Haru’s (clearly premeditated) stunts would have been quite enough by itself were it not also for the small matter of the flowers. Rin had had so many delivered to him over the course of the week - in class, in training, at his part time job, even on the street one time - that he found himself starting to duck and hide anytime he saw someone approach with a bouquet in hand. He was also genuinely considering opening a pop-up florists to try and recoup some of the money Haru was throwing into his vendetta.

He wasn’t sure it was technically possibly to romance someone to death, but if anyone could do it it was Haru. He had found himself dreading what the weekend would bring...

-x-

In hindsight, it took Rin longer than it should have done to realise where Haru was getting all his ideas from.

As it was, Rin arrived home on Saturday evening - laden down with yet more flowers - and found the apartment empty, a note from Haru explaining he was having an early dinner with Makoto. He felt guilty for the little relief he felt at not having to fend off yet more romance and decided that after a hard week he deserved to kick back with a beer and a film.

But when he went into the bedroom to dig out his hidden DVDs he found that they had moved (Rin hid his collection of romcoms and shoujou manga like most guys hid their porn. In that at least he and Haru were well matched, Haru having not quite grown out of hiding his waterfall magazines under his side of the bed).

After tearing apart half the apartment, he finally found them stacked in amongst Haru’s art supplies. As he flicked through the collection a sinking realization hit. The room filled with stuffed animals, the train station reunion, the 10 ways he loved Rin, the singing, the flowers, the kissing in the rain. They all formed climaxes to some of Rin’s favourite romantic movies.

Haru, clearly, had been studying.

Doing a little more investigating produced a crumpled up list of Haru’s plans. Rin tried not to let himself be overcome by the sheer scope of it - amongst many other crossed off ideas Haru had written _‘chase him through airport - how???_ ’ and had apparently been very taken with options for skywriting services - ( _‘Forcast too cloudy_ ’ he’d noted, followed by several sad faces and then a sketch of his rather ambitious idea that Rin offered silent thanks to the gods hadn’t come to pass.) 

While it was true that Rin wavered in his self-worth less these days, shored up by Haru's ever-steadfast affection and support, it certainly didn't hurt to see the evidence of the lengths to which Haru was prepared to go in black and white. 

“ _Such a weirdo”_ Rin whispered to himself affectionately, smiling despite his earlier frustration.

He would perhaps have been even more impressed at Haru’s commitment and the evil genius of seeking out Rin's most cheesy ideals of romance and weaponsing them against him, but the fact was that Rin missed his boyfriend. Sure it had only been a week, but he missed the usual easy contentment of their relationship. Waking up in Haru’s arms to see him smiling down at him. Stealing kisses in between training and classes, walking home together hand in hand, giddy to return to the privacy of their shared apartment.

So when Rin arrived home on Sunday evening to find their flat styled to look like something out of Baz Luhrmann's _Romeo and Juliet_ (a film Haru had banned Rin from watching again due to all the crying) he decided that enough was enough, lest the week actually culminate in both of their deaths.

* * *

Rin stared his boyfriend down trying valiantly not to let himself become distracted by just how devastatingly handsome Haru looked in a suit.

“Haru, enough we really have to talk about this!”

“But I ran you a bath.” Haru replied sweetly. “I know what a long day you’ve had, my poor hard working boyfriend. I thought a soak would do you good.”

Rin hesitated, resolve immediately weakening. Haru knew that Rin only ever really got in the bath when he was in there with him. Perhaps talking could wait just a _tiny bit_ longer…

But when Haru led him into their bathroom, Rin quickly started to rebel again.

“Haru what the actual fuck is this?”

The water was pink and covered in sparkling blue bubbles. There were yet more rose petals everywhere and Rin thought he might be at risk of choking from the smell of all the different oils Haru had used.

“Get in the bath Rin.”

“No we need to talk.”

“Rin I’ve run you this lovely romantic bath and you are going to enjoy it.” Haru insisted stubbornly. 

For a while they struggled comically, Haru determinedly pulling Rin’s joggers down while Rin tried to stay clothed.

Haru won out in the end, and Rin found himself sat up to his neck in bubbles and flowers.

He glared up at his still annoyingly clothed boyfriend. “Aren't you at least going to join me.”

“No. _Babe._ ” The word heavy with sarcasm. “I’ve got your favourite dinner to prepare. Romantic, right?”

“Haru---”

But Haru had already gone.

Rin tried to give it a chance, really did, but whatever magic it was that baths worked on Haru he felt the opposite happening to him. The longer he sat there the more and more riled up he felt until eventually he launched himself out of the water, spilling bubbles and sparkles everywhere, and wrapped a towel around his waist.

Determined, he stormed into the kitchen, petals still stuck to his skin and hair and grabbed Haru’s shoulder to pull him round to face him.

“Haru ENOUGH. Being forced to sit alone in a cold bath full of slimy  _flowers_ is not romantic. But _you are_ ok? I was being a jerk and I was wrong. So wrong. When you chased after me and fucked up that relay, that was romantic. When you filled the pool with cherry blossoms for me it was romantic. When we made the team and you gave me your medal, that was _so romantic_. God, just the way you leave me those little notes with your doodles on, even if it's just a shopping list for christ sakes, is romantic. And when you told me you loved me for the first time - the way you just… blurted it out like you didn’t even know you were gonna say it - it was the most romantic thing that had ever happened to me in my life. You don’t need the silly cheesy gestures because all the little things you do just being you are enough. More than enough I--”

Rin cut himself off. He frowned, looking a little startled by something. 

“Ah shit. It’s you isn’t it? You _are_ better at this than me.” He sighed and ran a hand over his face. “I’m sorry Haru. Really. You win.”

Haru looked at him skeptically.

“I win?”

“You win.”

Haru’s face split into a grin and he surged forward to wrap his arms around his boyfriends neck, not even slightly concerned about his wet skin or getting rogue petals on his suit. He kissed Rin full on the mouth, pulling away just enough to whisper:

“Now _that’s_ the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.”

**Author's Note:**

> Side note: cut to the feeling is a BOP :)


End file.
